Lillian Board

The luxury

Not recorded.

What was your first success?

At the long jump, in fact, when I was 14, my first major success, I won the All-English Schools, and this delighted me.

What was your first success outside school event?

Outside school would be in the British Championships in nineteen sixty six. By this time I'd moved up to the four hundred metres because I couldn't make the team as a sprinter the British team. And in fact, I'd been eliminated in the semifinal of the four hundred, but this particular year was the Empire Games in Jamaica, and because I happened to have the third fastest time for an English girl, it meant I was eligible to compete in the Empire Games, so really this was my first success.

How many evenings a week do you train?

Um, it varies actually. I usually set it or rather my father and I set a schedule together for seven nights a week in the winter, although certain things prevail and I can't always train the full seven days. I usually train though I should say about six times a week in the winter. This used to consist of three times a week weight training and three or four times a week running on the track or over cross country or sometimes on the roads.

You were selected for the Commonwealth Games in 1966 in Jamaica. How did you do?

I came fifth in the final.

Was there any conflict between your father training you and the national coaches at the Mexico City Olympics?

No, not really. Um for the last couple of years there has been some conflict inasmuch as the press are always slating my father, always telling me I would do a lot better to get a national coach. But I'm quite happy with the results as they are at the moment. Um when I went to Mexico, my father was there, in fact, but merely as a spectator, to watch the end product, so to speak. He'd coached me for so long, and he wanted to see how I would fare. But there was no question of anyone intercepting. Um I was quite happy to be advised by the national coaches while I was in Mexico, and Daddy it um didn't interfere in the least. He had no reason to. The work had been done, it was just m a matter of carrying out a few more training sessions before the big day.

Did anything upset you in the Olympic final? Was it the climate?

Nothing upset me. Nothing went wrong. If I could r um run that race again, I wouldn't change a thing. I would just hope that Colette Besson wouldn't come up on me.